LSU baseball completed their opening series sweep in a similar style to their previous two victories: with an onslaught of runs. The insistent LSU bats plated another 21 runs in their series sweep of Maine. With 51 runs over the three-game series, the Tigers set a new record for the program’s most runs scored in the opening three games of the season, a mark of 45 runs previously achieved by the 1996 Skip Bertman team that went on to win the College World Series with a Warren Morris walk-off home run.
LSU’s middle of the order of Dylan Crews, Cade Doughty, Brayden Jobert and Giovanni DiGiacomo batted in 16 of LSU’s runs Sunday, in large part due to Doughty and Jobert’s second home runs of the weekend and DiGiacomo’s first of the season. Dropping five runs in the first inning — followed by five consecutive extra base-hits by Tre’ Morgan, Jacob Berry, Crews, Doughty and Jobert in the second inning as well as a sixth added by Jack Merrifield — gave Ty Floyd an 11-run lead to work with.
“I don’t know how long I sat the first inning, but I swear I felt like I was sitting for an hour,” Floyd said. “I can’t complain because they scored however many runs in the first inning.”
Floyd worked five innings and only gave up one run on two hits. He set career-high strikeouts with eight in an impressive debut in the Sunday starter role.
The team’s batting average and OPS show how assertive they were from one to nine across the weekend. Hitting .388 and putting up a 1.222 OPS in the opening series is a testament to the dominance the LSU bats showcased.
“I just think our players were really eager to play,” Jay Johnson, head coach, said. “I think they were very prepared. I think they didn’t take many pitches for granted. And once we settled into the game about the third inning on Friday night, there’s a lot to like and a lot to point to as a model of how we want to roll and operate going forward.”
Johnson was careful not to guarantee that this amount of run support would be an occurrence every weekend, but it is clear from his comments that he, his staff and his players believe this is a sustainable way of winning games as the season goes on: by burying teams to their heads in runs.
The team continuously mentioned how prepared and bought-in to Johnson’s philosophies they are, and that faith and dedication to him seems to have paid dividends for the program upon first returns.
“This is probably the best start to a weekend any of us could have asked for,” DiGiacomo said. “I think all of the guys are excited. Our chemistry is great, and we’re all gelling really well.”
LSU will play their next game against Louisiana Tech in Ruston on Wednesday night. It will be the Tigers’ first road game of the season against a projected NCAA tournament team. Johnson has yet to name a starter for the game but mentioned he has a handful of pitchers in mind that he wants to utilize. First pitch will be at 6:00 p.m. CT, and the game will be available to watch on YurView or ESPN+.